Opinion: Fat, sugar, chicken, milk -- 100 years of American eating
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The March issue of Amber Waves, a U.S. Department of Agriculture newsletter, takes a fascinating look at food availability and consumption trends in America over the last 100 years. It’s probably no surprise that availability has gone through the roof, but the numbers, in terms of pounds per person, are sobering. I’ve included a few snippets from AW.
In 1909, sweetener availability -- sugar, molasses, honey, corn syrup and other syrups -- stood at 83.4 pounds per person. Between 1924 and 1974, that average grew to 113 pounds per capita, not including the sugar-rationing World War II years. Then government policies, including subsidies for corn production and trade restrictions for sugar, helped make corn sweeteners less expensive than sugar, and manufacturers began using the cheaper high fructose corn syrup in everything -- soft drinks, cereals, soups, spaghetti sauce. By 2008, sweetener availability stood at 136.3 pounds per person, with HFCS accounting for 39% of the total.
The information in Amber Waves is fairly neutral, but the politics of sugar are anything but. Here’s a Times editorial about the harm caused by the government’s insane sugar-corn love affair and the farm lobby’s power.
Here’s what AW has to say about availability of fats, which grew from 36 pounds per person in 1909 to 87 pounds in 2008:
Increasing availability of fats and oils and cheese reflects their use in processed foods and the growing eating-out market in the second half of the century. ... Much of this increase was in salad and cooking oils used to cook french fries, a mainstay of fast food and other restaurant menus. Cheese availability also skyrocketed -- growing from 11.4 pounds per person in 1970 to 31.4 pounds in 2008. Cheese owes much of its growth to the spread of Italian and Mexican eateries in the United States and to innovative, convenient packaging, such as string cheese for lunch boxes.
-- Lisa Richardson